


The Night Comes Down

by SegaBarrett



Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Backstory, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 09:56:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15838887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Pope is at his breaking point.





	The Night Comes Down

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Animal Kingdom, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Title is from a Queen song. 
> 
> TW for prison abuse, implied child sexual abuse, and implied incest.

Everything was bright, too bright, and too loud, and within Pope’s head he couldn’t stop screaming. Or maybe he was screaming outside, and that’s why it was so loud too. He wanted to cry but he knew he couldn’t; maybe he had forgotten how to, a long time ago.

He was covered in sweat; he was sure he was bleeding somewhere too. He couldn’t survive if this was to go on any longer, and then what would happen? Was there a graveyard behind the prison where they dumped the people who Hilty played with too hard?

There were hands on him; he couldn’t even fight anymore. His arms were numb. 

Then everything was cold, and he had fallen back into his cell. There was a voice above him, but he couldn’t hear it – everything was washed out and he could only make out orbs dancing in his eyes. He wanted to sleep but didn’t dare shut his eyes; he knew what would happen then – Hilty would come back, and Hilty would stop him. 

“Hey… Red?” 

The voice above him was low and gravelly. He didn’t recognize it at first and slowly tried to place it; it was as if his mind was a tape that had had its black reel pulled out and was only slowly being pulled back inside.

“Red, come back to me… It’s me.” 

He tried to focus on the face; it was blurry, but he slowly recognized it as the guy they’d put him in a cell with before… before he had gone into the bright room, before everything had hurt. Vin had been his name. Why was he still here? Pope must have been in the room for years. It seemed weird that he would still have the same cell mate.

He tried, again, to focus on the face. He was pretty scarred up, nearly white-haired at this point, grizzled and probably as old as Pope’s own father, whoever the hell he had turned out to be. 

“I’m going to throw up,” Pope mumbled, slowly trying to get to his feet and finding it, continually, impossible. The man had him right where he wanted him, if he wanted him. Pope wanted to scream.

“No, you’re not,” the other man told him. “It’s me, Vin.” He placed his hands against Pope’s armpits and Pope shuddered, hard.

“Don’t…” What could he even say to stop him, though? He could kill him here, if he wanted, or do anything else that he might want to do.

To his surprise, Vin released him. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Vin said, extending his hands in an offer. “I just want to take care of you.”

Pope nervously put his own arms out and let him lift him up into the bed, pulling a blanket over top of him. Pope wanted to cry; it was the first time he had felt something soft touch his skin in so long. It made him think of being huddled up with Julia, hiding from the thunder.

Pope didn’t want to let out a moan, and yet that was exactly what he did as soon as Vin’s hands brushed against his chest. It had been so long since someone had touched him without trying to hurt him; he had to scrape his mind for it. Had it been Cat? Baz? Julia? Who had held him and told him it was going to be okay… or had it always been him that he head in his memories?

“Everything hurts,” he murmured, shame going out the window as he curled up beside Vin and let his eyes begin to slip shut. 

“It’ll feel better once you get some sleep…” Vin promised, putting his hand at the base of Pope’s spine. Pope gasped, surprised at how good, wrongly, it suddenly felt. He should get up and try to run, scream and bang on the bars. It was what he normally would have done if he had the energy, if he were able to focus. But he was just so tired…

“You expect me to sleep like this?” Pope protested weakly. He couldn’t sleep with that hand on his back, couldn’t sleep that close to someone who he didn’t trust. 

“You’re going to have to,” Vin told him gravely. “If you stay up long enough, you start to see shit, and that doesn’t help either one of us.”

Pope wanted to argue with him, but he could see the logic in that. He could remember days at Smurf’s house where he had stayed up, had been sure he hadn’t needed sleep, and had been giddy and feeling as if he was unstoppable and could do anything. 

It had felt like the most beautiful, dangerous high and he knew that was a place he couldn’t let himself get to while he was here. 

“What are you going to do to me when I fall asleep?” Pope asked; his legs felt heavy and his arms, too. This was the way he could escape Hilty, if only for a few minutes. 

“I’ll just be here, with you. Until you wake up.”

***

Pope’s hands were tied tight to the chair, circulation cut off and hands inflamed. His eyes were wide open and the light was shining directly in on him. There was music blasting, and he couldn’t make out any lyrics, simply shrieking sound, a high-pitched whine cutting through his head. 

His head lulled and he wondered if he could plead his way out of this. He didn’t want to, didn’t want to hear his own voice as he asked him to make it stop, but he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take. 

How long had he been in here? Had there ever been a place other than this?

He tried to picture Julia’s face, Cath’s face, but he couldn’t conjure them up in the bright room. The bright room could only hold pain, could only hold the memories of being locked in a closet for days, being pressed against the wall by Smurf.

Pain and brightness and fear. 

“Let me out! Let me out!” Pope screamed, suddenly. There he was, breaking, finally breaking.

Maybe this time it would be what Hilty wanted… Maybe this was the time he would finally let him go.

***

It hadn’t been. Hilty had put him in the bright, noisy room twice more after that. He’d been crying in earnest by the end, sobbing, and then he had thought he had run out of tears by the time he’d been thrown back into the cell.

Pope couldn’t stop seeing himself there, even in his dreams. He woke up in a pool of sweat and rolled over into Vin. 

He began to shake and opened his mouth to scream. He couldn’t go back, couldn’t go, couldn’t…

A hand clapped over his mouth, and Pope thrashed.

“Don’t scream, he’ll come in here if he hears you. It’s okay. You’re just here in the cell. You’re okay.” 

Pope shut his eyes for a moment, trying not to cry. 

“It’s okay,” Vin whispered again, slowly removing his hand. He moved his hand to Pope’s stomach and kept it there, pulling him in close. “I’m here.”

Pope did not know if he wanted him to be there, to be so close. No one had been this close to him, not since Julia… not since Cath.

Not since… He didn’t want to think about that.

“You won’t let…” he started, and it sounded so weak. 

“He’s not coming back.” Vin held him firmly. “You need to shut your eyes and take deep breaths, and that’ll make it easier. You’re shaking.”

And Pope was. He didn’t want to be…

Vin turned Pope’s head to face him and pressed a soft, slow kiss on Pope’s lips. He gasped. 

He should run, run, fight, fight…

But instead he sunk into the comfort, into the warmth. The dark room.

“I’m with you now,” Vin said again, and this time Pope couldn’t help it. 

He tucked his head against Vin’s shoulders and let the tears flow.


End file.
